GKuehl

One thing I wish you had mentioned is the conundrum we face with so many of our corner OF options hitting left-handed, with Kepler, Gordon, Larnach, Kirilloff, Wallner, and Contreras (if you really want to include a AAAA player on this list) all hitting lefty. That's the main reason I'm hopeful we're able to trade Kepler for a mid-level prospect to reallocate his $8.5 million salary to a RH-hitting corner OF with some pop -- someone like Mitch Haniger. With the current roster construction, we'll be forced to play a LH-hitting OF every game against a lefty starting pitcher unless we want to play Garlick and Celestino, which seems like a recipe for disaster, as Celestino looks like he needs some more seasoning at AAA.

It feels like he could managed similarly to Chris Archer this past year -- limit him to 75-80 pitches for the first month of the season, see how his body responds, and move forward from there. For this plan to work the Twins need to have an effective long reliever who can enter a game in the 5th inning and bridge the gap to the back of the bullpen in the 8th inning twice a week.

I’m happy with this move if it helps lead to a Correa reunion. However, if we traded Urshela to simply sign Elvis Andrus, this move is a definite hindrance to our competitive outlook next year, and one that wasn’t worth making. The prospect looks intriguing, a potential reliever option in 3-5 years.

I’ve been wondering if service time manipulation is going to come into play, especially because he started the year in the majors. I’m guessing Winder gets sent down once Ober returns both to conserve some innings on on his innings limit and to gain an extra year of service time.

Who is Michael Helman? Why have I never heard his name before — his numbers look really solid!

I love your idea of using him as an opener. Since Canterino’s only throwing 3-4 innings per start at AA, why not have him start the game so he remains in a role he’s comfortable in, and let him pitch until he hits his 60 pitch limit before bringing in Archer who can’t go more than 4 innings anyway. We have to do something to limit the wear and tear on our bullpen, and this strategy would go a long way to giving the bullpen nearly a full day off every 5-6 days.

While I understand the allure of wanting to trade for a SP with multiple years of team control, those pitchers are FAR more expensive than rentals. And with the way our pitching pipeline is starting to bear fruit, we aren't in a position right now where we need to divest significant prospect capital to get someone like Frankie or Castillo. For the rest of this year, our starting staff includes Gray, Ryan, Ober, and Winder as the 4 guys we can "trust" with some inefficient Archer starts mixed in, Smeltzer spot starts, and hopefully as little of Bundy and his 88 MPH fastball as possible. Adding a 1-year rental like Price (who would almost certainly be affordable in terms of prospect capital) could really help bolster that group. We also have SWR, Canterino, Balazovic, Sands, and Varland knocking on the door ready to contribute. While they might not all be ready for 100 innings this year, I don't see any harm in calling up SWR or Balazovic in the next few months to see if they're capable of getting big league hitters out. Worst case scenario, they get lit up and we send them back down for some more "seasoning." Also, it sounds like Maeda might be able to contribute in September, which would be huge in helping us watch the innings of some of these young arms. While Paddack is likely out for a large chunk of 2023 (if he needs Tommy John), our starting staff looks pretty full. Next year, our rotation already looks pretty full (Gray, Ryan, Maeda, Ober, Winder, SWR, and Balazovic for sure, with Canterino, Sands, and Henriquez working out of the bullpen). While no team can ever have too much starting pitching, it wouldn't be worth it to part with 2 of our top 10 prospects for 1.5 years of Frankie when our rotation already goes 7 deep notwithstanding any free agent additions or a Paddack return for 2023.

I’d rather have Jorge at SS and Arraez or Miranda at 2B than Gordon at SS.

His package is essentially a faster, slightly more versatile but less useful at SS Ehire Adrianza, which can certainly be a useful piece on a winning club. However, if he doesn’t clear a .600 OPS this year, it’s hard to justify him locking down the utility role moving into next year. Another comment mentioned Miranda, Arraez, Steer, Martin, and Julien who are all essentially utility players capably of playing the same positions as Gordon (minus SS). And with Jorge capable of sliding back to SS when needed, it might get tough to justify keeping Gordon on the roster as one of 12 or 13 hitters, particularly since we don’t seem very comfortable playing Gordon at SS. He’s not an every day guy, but even if Correa leaves at the end of the year, Lewis is certain to step in at SS next year and keep Gordon in the exact same role, just with Steer, Martin, and Julien nipping at his heels with another year of development and at bats under their belts. I like Gordon, and while we have a handful of cheap, controllable years, he might not merit the roster spot in years to come.

How long should his leash be? 0 inches, because he should be kept in a kennel (aka the bullpen or the waiver wire). I’m confused by people wondering who’ll step into the 5th starter role because Paddack has been OUTSTANDING with a 3.15 ERA that looks entirely sustainable. He looks like a legitimate #3 on a playoff team, far better than Bailey Ober who everyone seems to have locked into a mid-rotation spot when he returns. We should run with a 6-man rotation of Ryan, Gray, Paddack, Winder, Ober, and Archer for as long as we can until someone is injured. Either throw Bundy in the bullpen to see if he’s capable of coming in after Archer’s obligatorily short starts or keep someone like Cole Sands in the bullpen to piggyback off of Archer. I also can’t wait to see some of the other young studs like SWR, Canterino, Varland, etc.

We’ve gotta think about Bundy moving to the ‘pen once Ober/Gray are back. I’m not trying to be all doom and gloom, but his stuff isn’t all that good (sub-90 mph fastball), and he’s been leaving a ton of pitches over the plate that he’d just been lucky to avoid more hard hit balls. Last year he had a 3.32 ERA through 3 starts before it had ballooned to 6.06 by the end of the year. No harm in moving him to the bullpen and allowing Winder to continue working as a starter. Bundy can come in and get some mop up work and slide back into the rotation if two of our other starters get injured.

I know he only has 1 start (plus coming in for Sonny when he got hurt and pitching 5.1 innings), but we’ve gotta give Winder some love too! He’s been nothing short of stellar, particularly when you consider he’s a starter who’s had to change his routine by coming out of the bullpen for all but one of his appearances.

Definitely a beneficiary of being on the 40-man roster, as he likely didn't deserve the promotion after his last 2 outings at AAA (whereas someone like Smeltzer who maybe deserved the promotion more would have required a 40-man move since he isn't already on the 40-man). Sands looked nervous at first, but once he settled in, he looked confident and capable of getting major leaguers out. He definitely looks like another intriguing arm that our pitching pipeline is starting to churn out!

Winder > Ober? When he comes back does Ober slot into the bullpen with Winder retaining a rotation spot?

Over the course of a full season, I think our defense will be one of our primary strengths. With Buxton manning CF, the importance of the range of the corner OFs is diminished. Our infield defense, particularly with Arraez playing more 1B and less anywhere else, is absolutely stellar, with gold glove candidates in Polanco and Correa up the middle. Plus, Jeffers has continued to be fantastic at stealing strikes for our pitching staff.

Our biggest flaw at this point is the bullpen and a lack of trustworthy, power arms to finish off games. It's already bitten us in the butt a few times early, but thankfully we were able to shake those games off and not let them crater our season like the Colome games early last season. Deploying Caleb Thielbar as our #1 lefty out of the pen is extraordinarily risky, and I understand that his stuff has still been as good as it was last year, but his ability to locate and make important pitches has been absent in the early going. Duffey and Stashak haven't resembled the pitchers they were in 2019 and 2020, and I think they're best left for medium-low leverage spots rather than the late innings of a close game. Griffin Jax looks like this year's Matt Wisler, which could be a fantastic development for this team, but it's difficult to trust this early on. Alcala, who we were really counting on to get some big outs for us this year is out for the foreseeable future and maybe even the entire season. At this point, the only relievers I trust to get big outs late in games right now are Duran, Joe Smith, and maybe Pagan. However, I wonder if some bullpen reinforcements are on the way. I know that it's early, but is it ever too early to start looking at reinforcements? While Matt Canterino, Ronny Henriquez, and SWR are all looked at as starting pitching prospects (and we don't want to damage their longterm outlook and value by forcing them into relief roles), I think there would be some value in calling one of them up to the big league club fairly soon. Canterino has incredible stuff, and we're likely to watch his workload closely. I would rather he uses his electric club to help the big league club than 3-inning starts every 5th or 6th day at AA. Further, Henriquez lacks prototypical size for a SP, so he may be best destined for the bullpen anyway Why not give him a taste at the big league level? And SWR is tearing it up at AAA, and while there is certainly value in keeping him stretched out as a starter for when we need him later in the year, he could be immensely valuable in the bullpen in August if we want to watch his innings as the year progresses. This team looks ready to compete, and I think we have the resources to plug some of our biggest needs from the inside, chiefly by deploying Canterino and Henriquez as flamethrowers in the major league pen.

Larnach is hitting way too well for him to go down when AK comes back. There’s no reason Larnach can’t man LF with AK at 1B and Sano splitting time at DH with Sanchez.

Joe Smith is an absolute bargain at just $2.5 million! It’s really nice to have another guy we can trust to come in and get big outs down in the bullpen.

With how well Bundy has been pitching, I wonder how likely it is we pick up his $11 million option next season (with a $1 million buyout if we don’t pick it up). After he inked his deal, I figured it was just a 1-year deal with almost no shot we’d choose to pay Bundy $11 million next season. However, he looks like a guy that can perform well, particularly after he looks to have reinvented himself and bought into the Wes Johnson “sliders, sliders, and more sliders” model.

As a devoted Pat Neshek lover, I’d have to say Neshek really isn’t a good example. You mention that relievers “burn bright and die out quickly,” but Neshek had 9 seasons after leaving the Twins with a sub-4.00 ERA and 6 of those with a sub-3.00 ERA. It doesn’t look like his opponents ever really adjusted to him — he just dealt with injuries his last few years here that made him ineffective in a very small sample.

I’ve gotta imagine things will turn around at some point — just way too many guys are underperforming their career numbers like you noted. While the argument that the weather has been a hindrance in the early going often seems like a useless trope, there have been way more than a handful of balls that would have gone for extra bases in July that have been knocked down by the wind or caught on the warning track. Better days are ahead, there’s just too much talent for this lineup to not be at least average.

After watching Duffey blow another game, I’m hard pressed to label Duffey a “good arm.” I wouldn’t mind if his “good arm” were pitching for another team in the near future.

While I agree with the general sentiment that Larnach has looked a lot better at the plate so far, this feels a bit TOO positive about a hitter with a .176 batting average and a .446 OPS (in an admittedly small sample) so far. He had that ball he smashed to center a few games ago that Kike Hernandez "dropped" that should have been credited as a double, which would make his numbers look more palatable considering how small the sample is. While his underlying numbers (exit velo, barrels, etc.) show better things are seemingly on the way, I'm a bit hesitant about proclaiming that Larnach is back and here to stay. P.S. I really like Larnach and think he'll be a really good major league hitter for a long time.

I’ve been wondering if we’ll see Arraez spend a little time at 1B, especially with how Sano and Kirilloff have both been struggling, to put it mildly. Urshela is better than being relegated to the smaller half of a platoon against LHP, but we need Arraez’s bat in the lineup too. I think we’ll see Arraez a fair amount at DH as well. I was also wondering last night when we pinch hit Arraez for Celestino whether Urshela could slide over to 1B so Arraez could take over 3B with Kirilloff coming in in LF. Time will tell, but I’m extraordinarily frustrated with watching Sano aimlessly swing and miss or hope to take a walk. We have some flexible pieces, so I’m curious to see how flexible they can be.

I was trusting this article: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/sports-columnists/story/2022-03-26/padres-reliever-emilio-pagan-home-runs-manager-bob-melvin Guess your research was better than mine!